Awfully beautiful

Montreal is a bit of a mess right now. Since Friday we’ve had 55 cm of snow (that includes Monday night’s surprise of 15 cm), which makes for mountainous snow banks, very slushy roads, and traffic jams caused by snow removal trucks and plows. But if you are looking for scenes to paint, it’s awfully beautiful out there.

I was hoping for some sun so I could paint snow shadows, but I woke up to an overcast day. It was tempting to stay inside and paint from the studio, but instead I gave myself kick out the door and was rewarded with mist in the air and a wonderfully foggy day. Perfect for practicing with my gouache.

On a day with little colour, a limited palette seems best. This one is mostly Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine Deep and Raw Sienna watercolour along with white gouache. Oh, and a few dabs of red and green for signage and stuff. Size: 14″ x 10″.

A very nice painting that really projects the feeling of cold and snow (and makes me so glad to be in Florida). Were there some parts of the painting that the qouache made easier for you to do or were you just having fun with it?

Thanks Jeff. I still leave the white of the paper for the snow, so white gouache doesn’t help with that at all. But I like being able to mix opaque and transparent areas of pigment so I really am having fun with it.

You really captured the snow and slush very well. Somehow I feel you downplayed the snowbanks though. Their like 4ft high on the sides of my driveway. But huge snowbanks everywhere don’t make for a nice composition. I also love your dull grey winter sky. I see you used both Gouache and Watercolour in this!!

Thanks Shawn. I actually did not downplay the snowbanks in this one. This is a major thoroughfare in Lachine, so most of the snow had already been taken away. The side streets, though, are another store. Very high snowbanks everywhere and nowhere to park!